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Good as Gone by Amy Gentry, Review

“My whole life, ever since I could remember, I’d always hated the thought that no one could ever know what anyone else was feeling or thinking. The fact that no one could ever be inside my head with me seemed like the loneliest thing in the world. I wanted to bad for there to be something that could make those boundaries just disappear. Something so big it was like air, a magic flowing across the planet, connecting everyone and everything. “

When Charlie spoke to me, I saw the boundaries disappearing.

Now I see a careful distance narrowing.
I can not speak for aanyone but myself when I say, there was certainly a time in my teenage years when I felt completely and utterly lost. It is one of the absolute worst feelings a human can feel.**** SPOILERS AHEAD ****
This story is about a girl who lost herself in so many ways and it is heartbreaking.

The first part of this book I was in complete shock from the opening chapter. A young girl watching her older sister being kidnapped from her own bedroom. As I continued to read, I couldn’t help but to feel heartbroken for Jane & her parents, but most of all Julie. Where was she? Was she alive? I felt such sadness that Julie would missing out on such a wonderful life, with a sister who only wanted her attention and parents who loved her more than life (but I forgot, that’s just the life I thought up for her).

The second part of this book will leave you in such a whirlwind. Everything–all the evidence points to the fact that Julie–who has returned home–is not at all the the real Julie, but a stranger. Then we learn more secrets from not only the parents lives but the back story of the woman living in their house, pretending to be their daughter. In the meantime we finally gain the truth of just how much Julie’s parents have neglected the daughter who was alive -Jane.

If you thought by now in the book was coming in full circle, your are surely mistaken. In the final part of this book, shit hits the fan full force. The Julie “imposter” we discover is the actual Julie. Let all of that sink in.

We learn so much throughout the whole book before we understand the meaning.

“I don’t tell him how much it hurts to see him tumble from his pedestal. This is why people need God- because people are awful, even the good ones. I’ve always prided myself on being so rationed, so unaffiliated by spiritual yearnings, not realizing my personal gods were Tom and Julie, the good people. But nobody ever gets to be good except on the terms the world hands them.”

What I learned was that Julie was not leading the perfect life with the perfect parents and the perfect picket fence. No. She was lost in the worst way and felt there was no escape. Until someone came along, and she felt an out and took the opportunity. I learned her absent parents (though they had no idea) played an immensely huge role on to why she chose what she did. And it’s sad, the actions of Julie’s mother were taken because of the way her mother was to her.

I knew she was laughing, but I thought she was laughing at me.

My mom just sort of looked at me when I wore pretty clothes, her lips pressed together.

“I don’t need a mirror to know what that expression looks like. I saw it on my mother’s face over and over again. I didn’t know it was on mine.”